The Fredösphere

A while back I mentioned I'm writing a choir piece based on an Irish poem.  I thought I could get it done easily, but that securing the copyright permission would be hard.  Boy, did I have that backwards.

The poem was translated from mediaeval Latin and published in the late 20s, so the copyright status was dicey, and I knew I could not make any assumptions about it.  The translator is now dead and doesn't have much of a footprint on the internet.  My one lead was that a university library in Ireland lists her manuscripts in its holdings.  So I emailed the library, and got a reply within two days.  The librarian gave me the address of the translator's niece, now an elderly woman herself, but still very much alive, in charge of the translator's estate.  The librarian also volunteered to contact her and let her know who I was -- the soul of helpfulness.

So I sent a letter to the niece in Ireland, and got a reply in about two weeks.  She gave me permission to use the poem for free.

Folks, it's not supposed to work that way.  In spite of what you might think about the Library of Congress, there is no information center that can definitively tell you that a work is in the public domain.  Copyright holders need not register their copyrights or advertise them in any way.  They can sit back quietly and nail you when you assume too much, if they want to be jerks about it.

Fortunately, few people want to be jerks.  But the uncertainty creates problems.  If you want to compose vocal music, you need texts to set, and you will either have to go on these treasure hunts or restrict yourself to texts that date unambiguously from before 1923.

If you want to enter a choral composition competition, you will likely need to certify in some way that you have permission to the text you have set.  Ditto if you are looking for a publisher.

Anyway, I got the permission and started serious work on the composing.  Now I find myself in the middle of the worst writer's block I've ever experienced.  I can generate ideas, that's not the problem; it's just that all my ideas are flawed, or lead to dead ends, or are inappropriate for this text, or just plain stink.

I hope this isn't part of a long term trend, but John Adams says it is.  (Darn.  I'm sure I read somewhere John Adams saying composition has got harder and less certain as he has aged.  Google is not helping me.  I can't find a link.  So much for ending this post with a nice punch.)